cooking and baking therapy from my very own Yorkshire Bakery

Tag: biscuits. The Great British Bake Off

A variation on John Whaite’s Apple, Macadamia Nut and Oatmeal Cookies.

Last weekend my village had a yard sale and I usually bake a couple of batches of cookies and flapjacks to sell on a stall. I had my eye on the Apple and Macadamia Nut Cookies in John Whaite’s latest book John Whaite Bakes At Home and wanted to bake them from the Breakfasts chapter at the beginning of the book. This was part of my latest Cooking The Books Challenge for June 2014.

I read the recipe and realised that the recipe needed dried apple, not fresh apple chopped up in chunks. I hadn’t got any dried apple so I found a bag of mixed, dried fruit which I thought I’d use instead.

John says “These inelegant cookies are nothing short of heaven sent. The dried apples are chewy, the macadamia nuts are crunchy and the oatmeal adds great texture in between the two” I could imagine me scoffing a whole plateful of these! So I thought I’d try them out on visitors to our Yard Sale.

First I creamed butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl, then added vanilla and egg. After this I tossed in some oats, plain flour and baking powder. Once this was brought together into a dough, in went some mixed dried fruit and some chopped macadamia nuts.

The ball of dough was then formed into a long sausage on a piece of cling film and wrapped carefully to chill in the fridge for about half an hour. When it was chilled enough, I cut the cookie sausage into 1cm slices and arranged them on a baking tray, baking them for about 10 or so minutes.

The finished cookies piled up on the cooling rack ready to be boxed up for our yard sale.

The Yard Sale started off well and all my chocolate flapjack and my white chocolate fudge cookies sold. I was left with about six out of twenty of these beauties. Many people who realised they had dried fruit in said “Oh no, I don’t like raisins” or “My kids won’t eat those,” The people who did buy them said they were delicious. I would love to bake the recipe again but will buy in some dried apple especially!

Here are a couple of pictures of the other two bakes for the Yard Sale:

White Chocolate and Fudge Cookies.Chocolate Covered flapjacks.Bakes laid out on the table ready for the customers.

Over the past few Saturdays we’ve been so busy with one thing and another I thought it would be nice if we could all sit down together as a family for our lunch. It’s always a quick snacky lunch on a Saturday as we’re so busy doing jobs and going here, there and everywhere. But it wasn’t meant to be. My son went out with his mates round town, my daughter went off with her Dad on another errand and I was left at home alone. Was I enjoying the quiet freedom of being at home by myself? Well at least I got the bathrooms cleaned and the hoovering done.

I’d planned to cook the Brunch Burritos from John Whaite Bakes At Home for our lunch. I don’t think I’ve ever had brunch in my life. Maybe before I had children I would have a late breakfast at the weekend over the Sunday papers. Now when people are eating brunch, I’m eating lunch as I’ve got up so early! The recipe serves one person but I’d quadrupled the quantities when doing my shopping. So at least I could work out how to cook it for one person and what a delicious and filling meal it was!

Here’s how to make the Brunch Burrito:

I chopped half a red onion, a quarter of a yellow pepper, about 50g of chorizo sausage and sprinkled some dried chilli on top of it. These were softened gently without oil in a frying pan.In another frying pan I heated up a spoonful of oil.To this I added two beaten eggs and cooked them as if I was making a plain omelette.The cooked omelette is put on top of a warmed tortilla wrap.I added half a tin of baked beans to the chorizo mixture and warmed it through. Then I put the beany mixture on top of the tortilla.There was a lot of filling in the burrito so I had to eat it with a knife and fork!

I was so impressed with the burrito, it was tasty and filling. So a couple of days later on the Monday night I cooked four of them for us for our tea to use up the remaining ingredients. I’m so glad I did as even my fussy son enjoyed it. My hubby asked if I could grate cheese over it next time or add some sour cream.

Thankyou once again to John Whaite for such a delicious and speedy recipe, not just for brunch but for lunch and dinner too!

Not another apple related blog post?! Well it certainly feels like it at the moment but then again I have been inundated with apples. The other day my next door neighbour came round with some apples. He gave us two huge carrier bags full of apples from his tree in his garden. One bag of smaller apples is being eaten by my daughter’s horse, the others by me and my family here in North Yorkshire.

The other day I posted about baking a Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding nearly two weeks ago from the latest Great British Bake Off book but I still had loads of apples to use up. I had been ill with a nasty cough so I hadn’t baked anything for nearly a week (a record for me!) But to me, Sunday lunch isn’t Sunday lunch without a pudding to finish it off especially in the colder weather. So it had to be something with apples but what could I bake? I’d made apple cakes, apple crumbles, apple pies and was running out of ideas. I looked through my recipe books and although it looked very big for a Sunday lunch I couldn’t resist having a go at the Apple Pie Cake which is from Edd Kimber‘s recipe. This cake recipe is featured in his “The Boy Who Bakes” book.

I have always liked Edd and his style of baking ever since we first saw him on the very first series of The Great British Bake Off back in 2010. His Red Velvet Cake from The Boy Who Bakes and his chocolate cake from his second book “Say It With Cake” are two of my favourite large cake recipes which I use time and time again.

Here’s how I made the Apple Pie Cake:

I needed to use three 20cm/ 8″ sandwich cake tins to make the apple pie cake. Here they are greased and lined with baking parchment circles from Lakeland.

The cake itself is actually created using a whisking method where the eggs are separated. The air gets into the cake by whisking the volume into the yolks and then into the egg whites. I’m not as experienced at this method so I did wonder how it would turn out.

Flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon were sifted into a large bowl.Butter and half the sugar were creamed together.One by one four egg yolks were added and beaten in to the mixture.Then some vanilla extract was added in.The egg whites were whisked together.Hoping to achieve soft peak status!Adding the remains of the caster sugar to the mixture bit by bit.Folding the egg whites into the cake mixture.Then adding the dry ingredients.Sharing out the mixture equally between the three tins.Making the caramelised apples for the top and filling of the cake; butter, sugar, cinnamon and sliced apples heating slowly in the pan.Two out of three layers of apple cake!The final one!The apples were then taken out of the sauce so that the sauce could thicken and caramelise.The apples in their bowl cooling down.Building up the cake layer by layer, spreading on a layer of cinnamon cream cheese icing, topped by a layer of apples.Two of the cakes turned out onto the cooling rack.Ta[dah! The finished cake. It tasted delicious- all the flavours of apple pie in cake form!

Despite still feeling rough from my cough after last week I was delighted that the cake turned out well. It tasted absolutely delicious and everyone enjoyed it. Even my son who complains he “doesn’t like apple cooked in anything” ate a second slice!